Faculty Plenary

The Faculty Plenary will take place on Wednesday 15 November at 4.00pm in Meeting Room 1 of the Conference Centre. The plenary is a forum for all faculty staff to discuss the policies and activities of the faculty. Items on the agenda include:

Full Economic Costs (FEC) for Research - What are the main issues in implementing FEC and how are these being addressed? (Yvonne Fox, Research Support Manager)

Fixed-term contract legislation - what is it and what does it mean for staff in the Faculty of Science and Technology? (Tracy Sheedy, Head of Operations and Laura Hinton, Personnel Officer)

Report: Forum on Health and Medicine

The Faculty Open Forum meeting on health and medicine on 6 November was attended by 30 people. There was a wide ranging discussion starting with the research aims of the Department of Medicine, and the need for good links with the local NHS trusts, including the provision of research training.

Other topics included:

We have considerable research in the understanding of disease processes and in disorder, both in Biological Sciences and Psychology. The emphasis on diseases of aging in BS, which is already involved in the N8 grouping, may well be a way to bring together several research themes to make a bigger statement.

There are major areas of research in the faculty where there can be meaningful contributions to health and medicine issues. These include Environment, ICT, and Bioinformatics and Medical Statistics. Medical technologies more generally might also be a theme, although not yet developed.

There are smaller pieces of research in many areas which have, or can have, a health/medicine theme. The aim here is to make these visible to Anne and others so that new ideas and new partnerships may arise.

A future meeting is planned to continue these discussions and take ideas forward. In the meantime, the faculty is interested in knowing details of contacts in Morecambe Bay NHS Trust with whom you are already collaborating. Please email the name, contact details and a brief description of the nature of the collaboration to Lucy Thorne.

Faculty postgraduate Reception

A faculty reception for postgraduates and their guests has been arranged to follow the graduation ceremony on the afternoon of Wednesday 13 December.

The reception will start at 4.30pm and will be held in Barker House Farm. A shuttle bus service will be in operation from near to the Great Hall down to Alexandra Park. Invites have been sent to all faculty graduands but to make the reception a success, we need as many staff as possible to attend. Please let Pauline Roberts in the faculty office know if you intend to go along.

Harassment Network

The University Harassment Network is looking for calm and sympathetic listeners who could offer just a few hours' support per term to students or staff who feel they are being bullied or harassed. The Network provides all the necessary training, with strong backup from other members of the group at termly meetings and informally in between.

Applications are welcome from any member of staff - particularly male staff or academic staff to redress current imbalances in the network.